That people can get so swept up in freaking out that they destroy a part of a city.
How does that happen!? Why does that happen!? (But really, it’s no worse than paid-for-by-the-government wars, though is it?)
Maybe it’s because of the amount of forced control they feel over their lives.
Maybe the rioters were trying to overtly take back some of their freedom, maybe they were driven to do it.
They may have reacted in an unnecessarily violent way… but I’m guessing, it’s societal and personal pressures, mixed with the lack of control exercised over their own lives and their lack of true, ultimate, joyful freedom that could be the significant causes to such mob lash-outs. A few people react in ways that look and feel just like real freedom and self-control, and that leads other people wanting in on that pseudo-freedom wave.
Who the heck doesn’t want to feel like they are in control and have full freedom? I know I do- all of the time! But I’m not going to burn a car over it.
Or would I? *cue slight paranoia over the state of the human mind*
How does mob-mentality work, exactly? I remember discussing it in Psych classes, but I never really dove into the workings of it. (This is where I make a note to go back to my psych book—and yes, I still have it!)
Let me see what google has to say…
On the website, wisegeek.com it says: Social psychologists who study group behavior tend to prefer terms like “herd behavior” or “crowd hysteria.”
Yeah. Not really the depth I was hoping to quickly stumble upon (and because I told myself I was going to write tonight, I’m not going to get into researching it just yet, but maybe I’ll do another post like that later).
I’m sure we all know what mob-mentality is… but do we know what it IS?? The root and cause of it? Why it happens?
Brings me to questions and paranoia’s like: Do only people who are similar in personality, or intellect, or blood alcohol level, or some other factor, react together in a mob? Or should unsuspecting people be wary of getting swept up, as if in a spontaneous tornado? Like, what if I had been on that street at that moment, might I have ended up smashing out a window or kicking a puppy or something?
(Not sure why my mind is comparing a riot in the streets of Vancouver to a mud slide in a rain forest (do mud slides even happen in the rain forests? OH there are SO many things in this world that I just don’t know for sure! Can we ever know it all!?))
And to completely contrast everything I just wrote:
I guess mob mentality offers a subtle, promising hope. If a mob of people can get so railed up over something like losing a hockey game, maybe mobs of people can spark spontaneous bursts of joyful evolutions over the streets of the world!
It shows that people really do have the potential to group together as one and completely change and take over a section of the world.
Can we create a mob-evolution? One where we over-throw all the things that don’t seem to “work” in society? Can we group together enough people working on their personal evolution to make everyone else on the street work on their own?
And instead of burning cars and robbing electronics, we plant vegetables and trees and use no cancer-causing chemicals!
It will take everyone together to create a world beautiful for everyone; natural, sustainable, full of love and animals!
Yes. I am a utopian. (but take that lightly… remember I don’t know what causes mob-mentality or if they have mud slides in rain forests, do you think I know the complete definition of a “utopian”? ;)
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